By Eliot Brown WSJ Fri., May 3, 2019 In Uber’s vision of the future, most people won’t own cars. Riders will hop on electric bikes and scooters for short distances, and summon cars with drivers for longer rides. Takeout dinner will become a vestige, replaced by hand-delivered meals. Garages will empty and parking lots will be ripped up and transformed into grassy parks. Eventually, robots will rule. Self-driving cars will shuttle people around the roads—and in the air—while drones will make the deliveries. Robotrucks will roam the highways. And Uber will be at the center of it all. But first, there’s the question of whether Uber will ever make any money. As Uber gets set to go public next Friday in one of the largest tech IPOs ever, Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi is trying to sell Wall Street on his vision that Uber will become the dominant force in all forms of transportation. That mission is threatened by an onslaught of competition from all sides that has intensified in recent months and caused Uber’s loss to balloon to more than $3.7 billion in the 12 months through March—by far the largest loss ever for a U.S. startup in the year before an IPO, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Article Continued Below Startups with deep-pocketed backers are using heavy discounts to overtake Uber’s food delivery services in the U.S., India and Mexico. A well-funded competitor in Latin America has launched an assault on Uber’s ride-hailing business there. In the wake… [Read full story]
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